1. Position Paper on
Value of Technical Publications in
the Biotechnology Industry

3. Introduction
This paper presents the importance of qualitative
TWB – Leading Technical Documentation
technical publication in biotechnology industry.
Outsourcing Company
Technical publication includes a wide range of
deliverables like white papers, process and workflow TWB is a leading technical publication company with
documentation, user guides, online help, classroom an excellent record of providing unmatched technical
training materials, reference guides, administration documentation solutions. TWB helps customers with
guides, standard operating procedures, installation all their technical documentation needs such as
manuals, web-based training materials, and product creating user guides, administration guides, process
demos. and work flow documents, installation manuals,
configuration documents and training materials.
The biotechnology industry has spread over several
sectors, including health care (medical), agricultural TWB works closely with client teams located globally,
biotechnology, contract services, bioinformatics, and assists them in meeting their worldwide product
biological engineering, genetics and others. It forms announcements and launch deadlines. TWB works
one of the fastest growing sectors in global economy, round the clock with client teams and help them with
and necessitates documentation of technical quick responses that aid timely distribution of
processes and products. documents around the globe.
Use of products developed in the biotechnology
industry varies from large pharmaceutical industries to
a kitchen. There is a wide range of products “Knowledge is people, money, learning, flexibility
(machineries, tools, equipments, chemicals, medicines and competitive advantage. Knowledge is more
and drugs, bio-fertilizers, organic pesticides, cheese, relevant to sustained business than capital or labor.
dairy products etc.) available. Hence, it covers a wide And yet knowledge remains the most neglected
range of consumers. This is the chief reason for the asset of a business. TWB helps you unlock and
enormous growth of the biotechnology industry. share your technical knowledge with the world.”
Along with increasing popularity of biotechnology
products, the complexity of implementation, usability
issues (of the equipments and various products) and
matching international standards make quality
documentation important. The documentation needs to
be simple and comprehensible to end users, which
necessitate the involvement of technical
documentation specialists in creating qualitative
documents.
“TWB believes that technology cannot exist
without being communicated effectively.”
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4. Biotechnology Industry – Technical Publications
Growth of the Biotechnology Industry Challenges and Solutions
At present the Indian biotechnology sector comprises Some of the documentation challenges faced by the
more than 350 companies. The sector has been industry today include:
growing at the rate of 35% - 40% per annum for the last
three years. India is ranked third in Ernst & Young’s  Developing comprehensive documents for the non-
Global Biotechnology Report 2004, for the number of technical audience
biotechnology industries in the country. India is the
 Managing large volume of documentation during
largest vaccine producer and cotton cultivator.
the documentation process
 Ensuring timely availability of quality documents
“The Indian biotechnology market, valued at INR
during product release
112.6 billion (US$ 2.86 Billion) in 2007-08, is
 Aligning with international standards of
projected to hit a CAGR of 30% in near future”.
documentation
According to ABLE-Biospectrum survey report
2008 “the Indian biotechnology industry is growing Currently, the market is highly competitive, and in
at an impressive annual growth rate of about 20%”. this context the toughest job is to satisfy the
customer. It results into lower profit margins, keeping
The following graph shows the technology wise growth implementation cost low. Still a large part of the cost
in the global biotechnology equipment market. is connected to maintenance activities. The quality of
documentation plays an important role during
implementation and maintenance. If the
documentation is not satisfying, it needs to be
restructured. It will lead to significant increase in
maintenance effort and total cost.
TWB being a leading technical documentation
outsourcing company provides documentation
solutions with professional quality. The
biotechnology industry is working as a global unit,
which often required modifications to suit the
requirements of a specific organization in different
geographies.
Benefits
Partnering with TWB has extremely benefited many
companies in saving costs and producing professional
documentation along with services such as:
According to a new technical market research  Transforming complex technical data into simple
report “the global market value for biotechnology and comprehensible language
equipment is an estimated $5.5 billion in 2009, but  Protecting technical and commercial data of newly
is expected to increase to nearly $7.3 billion in developed products
2014, for a 5-year compound annual growth rate  Providing rapid action for documentation availability
(CAGR) of 5.8%. and reduced process complexity
 Enabling easy update and management of
The segment projected to see the largest growth
documents
from 2009 to 2014 is array.”
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5. Value of Technical Publication
Technical Communication for Communication for Different Levels of
Transferring Product Knowledge Technical and Product Knowledge
The purpose of technical communication is to transfer In technical publications, audience is the focal point.
product knowledge to end users in a comprehensible Hence, the style, language, and content must vary
manner. The strategies of communication and levels of depending on the type of audience being addressed. It
information vary depending on the type of product and is because every user has a specific role in the
audience. implementation and usage of the technology.
Therefore, it is important that documents be created
keeping in mind the role of the person who will use the
Providing end users with information about a product’s
document.
operation and maintenance is critical to the market
performance of the product. Hence, the need for quality
documentation is imperative. For example, when you document a software
application designed for highly technical users, it is
sufficient to provide the users with quick reference
In today’s business scenario, technical publications are
information to use the application.
often developed as an afterthought. This usually results
in inaccurate and incomprehensible documentation,
which, in turn, renders the users incapable of using the For users who start without technical or product
products. knowledge, it is important to provide detailed product
information along with instructions on how to use the
product.
Accurate, readily understandable, and quality documents
determine how a product sells in the market and result in
increased customer satisfaction. Attractive Publications as Useful
Marketing Tools
Faulty Assumptions that Result in
Problems in Documentation Besides transferring knowledge, technical publications
are also used for marketing a product. Before a
product is released in the market, information about
The faulty assumptions listed below result in the product needs to be effectively communicated to
incomprehensible documents: the customers.
 Engineers know their products better than anyone Well-designed, accurately presented, and attractive
else – due to time constraints and limited resources, marketing collaterals increase the market prospects of
many companies assign their documentation tasks to a product and reduce support costs.
the programmers. This more often results in the
creation of technology-centered information, while
end users require task-oriented information.
 Documentation of complex applications requires a
longer learning curve for the writer – learning the
product will not be a major obstacle for writers with
the right technical background.
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6. Conclusion
The value of technical publications and the role of documentation outsourcing can be summarized as follows:
 Importance of Biotechnology: The importance and significance of biotechnology can be understood by the fact
that its development and application is associated with almost very field. Advancements in the areas of
biotechnology have exploited a variety of ways for industrial production, thus creating a commercial environment.
In the US alone there are more than 200 such companies including Genentech, Cetus, Hybritech, Biogen, etc.
These companies have been active participants in the research and development of emerging products. The
research and development needs to be supported with extensive documentation of processes, workflows, and
specifications.
 Value of Technical Publications: Technical publications are very essential for transferring product knowledge
to end users. Provisioning of proper material to use the technology and products enables the user to accept and
efficiently use the product. Faulty assumptions about documentation lead to inaccurate and hard-to-understand
material. This also decreases the chances of marketing the products in the global market.
 Role of Documentation Outsourcing: The complexity involved in developing products requires that vendors
and purchasers consider outsourcing their documentation needs to well-established Technical Publications
Solutions providers. Outsourcing technical documentation has helped companies cut costs and at the same time
deliver their products with quality documents.
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7. TWB Services
TWB is India’s leader in technical communication outsourcing and education. TWB offers a complete suite of services that allows
our customers to effectively publish their technical knowledge with their people and processes. TWB’s customers range from
Global 500 – including Cisco, Accenture, McAfee, LG, Samsung, Citrix, SAP, Siemens, AOL, Intel; Indian technology majors –
including Infosys, Wipro; Global defense majors - Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, DRDO, HAL; and exciting technology startups.
TWB's expertise in technical communication ranges from IT Products and Outsourcing, ITES, Banking, Financial, Aerospace,
Defense, Ship Building to Hi-tech Manufacturing, and Discrete and Process Manufacturing.
TWB’s services include:
Technical Marketing Technical Product Documentation Quality
Solutions Documentation Management
 Datasheets
 Administrator’s Guide
 Datasheets  Copy Editing and Proof Reading
 API Document
 Cheat sheets  Managing Writing
 Configuration Guide
 Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures  Editing Services
 Functional Specifications Document
 Presentations – Products/Corporate  Layout and Design
Profile  Installation Manual
 Creating SLAs
 Brochures and marketing collateral  Interface Document
 Web content  Interactive Electronic Technical Manual
(IETM)
Business Documentation
 Audio and video scripts
 Maintenance Manual  Business Proposals
 Press releases
 Online Help  Legal Disclaimers
 Direct mail
 Operation Manual  Policy Manuals
 Newsletter design copy
 Product Demo  Style Guide Design
 Sales catalogues
 Product Specifications Document  Template Design
 Sales sheets
 Product Overview Document
 Quick Reference Guide
Business Communication Content Management
 Release Notes
 Short Reports  Requirement Analysis Document
 Single Sourcing
 Proposals  SDK Document
 File Version Control
 Case Studies  Troubleshooting Manual
 Document Naming Conventions
 Lab Reports  User Manual
 Consistent Document Formatting
 Memos  Open Source Documentation
 Data Transformation
 Progress/Interim Reports  Programmers Guides
 Writing for Electronic Media  Functional Specifications Document
 Use Cases Web site Development
Illustrations  Online Help /Context Sensitive Help
 Web 2.0 development
 Troubleshooting Guides
 Graphic Designing  Web content

 Info graphics  Web applications
Qualitative Analytics for
 2D & 3D animation
Decision Support Translation and Localization
 Line drawings and illustrations
Services
 Economic Business Research
Process Documentation  Industry Analysis  Software Translation Services
 Workflows  Market Opportunity Analysis  Document Translation Services
 Standard Operating Procedures  Competitive Business Analysis  Localization (L10N) Testing
 ISO Documentation  Company & Prospect Profiling  Internationalization (I18N) Testing
 CMM Documentation  Reporting Solutions
 Assessment of Unmet Market Needs Records Management
Deployment and Support  Status and Potential of Technologies
 Document Management Solutions
 Benchmarking of Strategies Vs
Competition  Record Management Storage and
 Installation and Configuration Guides
Retrieval
 Operations Manual  Forecasting
 Sales Force Effectiveness
 Market Assessments
 Competitive Intelligence
 Opinion Leadership
 Emerging Markets - evaluation and
research
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8. TWB Software Tools Expertise
Our technical proficiency in software and authoring tools includes:
Our technical proficiency in software and authoring tools includes:
Unstructured Content XML Structured Editors Multimedia /Authoring
Development
 Epic  Adobe Flash®
 Microsoft Word®  FrameMaker+SGML  Adobe Dreamweaver®
 Adobe FrameMaker®  X-Metal®  Microsoft FrontPage®
 Adobe InDesign®  Adobe Captivate®
 QuarkXPress® Macromedia Captivate
 Adobe PageMaker® Graphics/Animations
 Multimedia /Authoring /
Illustrations  Adobe Flash® Supporting tools
 Adobe Photoshop®
 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional  Adobe Fireworks®  Adobe Flash®
 Adobe Illustrator CS3  Adobe Flex®
 CorelDRAW Online Help  Adobe AIR®
 Microsoft-Expression Graphic  Adobe Dreamweaver®
Designer  Adobe Acrobat®
 Xara Xtreme (Windows & Linux)  JavaHelp
 Microsoft Silverlight®
 CuteDraw  Adobe RoboHelp 7.0
 Adobe Authorware®
 Publisher3D(for animation)  HelpScribble
 Adobe Director®
 Sketsa SVG Editor (for vector  WebWorks Publisher
 Adobe Captivate®
graphics)  PowerCHM
 Trivantis Lectora®
 Techsmith Camtasia  Doc-To-Help
 ASP.NET
 Arbortext IsoDraw (technical  WinCHM
 JSP
illustrations for 2D and 3D)  HelpSmith 2.1.1(Windows)
 JAVA
 Fast-Help
 MadCap Flare Standards
Graphics/Animation  Help-Server
 NVU Help
 SCORM 1.2 / 2004
 Adobe Flash®  AICC
XML
 Adobe Photoshop®  W3C
 Adobe Illustrator®  Section 508
 Adobe Fireworks®  XMetal®  QTI XML
 Microsoft Silverlight®  Microsoft Word 2003®,
 Microsoft Word 2007®
Databases Development and Publishing
tools
CMS/ LMS
 Microsoft Access  XSLT/XSL
 Microsoft SQL Server  EDD
 Sharepoint®
 Moodle
Flowcharting  Joomla,
 WordPress
 Microsoft Visio  Media Wiki
 iGrafx  CMS Builder
 EDraw  Author-it (formerly AuthorIT)
 RFFlow  Alfresco
 Flowbreeze
 Smart Draw
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9. Industries Served
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge-driven industries, helping them meet their markets better. These include:
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge driven industries, helping them meet their markets better, these
include:
 Banking, Insurance and Financial Services  ITES/ KPO/ BPO
 Consulting and Business Services  Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
 Defense, Aerospace and Hi-Tech Manufacturing  Process Manufacturing and Allied Industries
 Education and Learning  Steel, Ship Building, Construction and Aviation
 IT, ITES  Telecom and Digital Communications
TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:
TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:
The TWB Building US Office:
No: 4062, 19th Main Road, TWB
HAL 2nd Stage, 11701 Norwegian Wood Drive
Bangalore – 560008 Austin, TX 78758
India.
Landmark: Behind Carlton Towers
Telephone: Telephone:
+91.80.40741400 / +91.80.41256367 +1.512.586.8357
Corporate Enquiries: corp@twb.in
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